TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The KMT and Chinese Communist Party have teamed up once again to undermine Taiwan’s sovereignty, Taipei-based journalist Chris Horton said in a Nikkei Asia opinion article published on Wednesday.

In the 1920s, the parties worked together to fight northern warlords in China, while in the 1930s, they temporarily paused their civil war to fend off the invading Japanese military, Horton pointed out. Now, relations between the two parties have grown closer, and their rhetoric increasingly aligns, he said.

There have also been more high-level meetings with KMT and CCP officials. In 2019, Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), the legislative speaker, met with Liu Jieyi, the former head of China's Taiwan Affairs Office, according to Horton. In 2022 and 2025, Andrew Hsia (夏立言), then KMT vice chair, met with CCP officials. 

In April 2024, Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁), the KMT's legislative caucus leader, led a delegation to Beijing. Fu met with Politburo Standing Committee member Wang Huning, who oversees Taiwan affairs. 

Chinese leader Xi Jinping seeks to annex Taiwan and has not ruled out the use of force to achieve this goal, Horton said. As President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) procures US weapons and has proposed a special defense budget to do so, the KMT and China-friendly Taiwan People's Party have repeatedly blocked it, he said.

“This obstruction has raised questions in Washington and other friendly capitals regarding Taiwan's willingness to defend itself,” Horton said. Xi essentially has a proxy inside Taiwan’s legislature following his orders, he added.

Xi Jinping refuses to meet with Lai unless he accepts the “1992 consensus,” while the president proposed talks in 2024 with no preconditions that maintained equality and dignity.

Amid these cross-strait tensions, KMT Chair Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) has embarked on a week-long trip to China at the invitation of Xi, arriving on Tuesday. She has framed her visit as a peace mission.

Horton said that if Xi and Cheng meet, “The optics of a leader of a political party based in Taiwan shaking hands with Xi have the potential to complicate Lai's outreach to the US more than any Chinese military exercises.”